I've had this wine before and I think it is great, it just appears it is going through some middle-aged awkwardness at the moment.

Pommard Premier Cru Clos des Epeneaux 2001, Comte Armand/Domaine des Epeneaux
A ripe, full-bodied nose of rich dark fruit and earth. It is framed with a seasoning of new oak. The nose is extremely expressive and charged with lovely, complex flavours. The palate has plenty of fruit, but at the moment the tannins seem a bit awkward. It is very complex with great persistence of flavour, though. Whilst this is a bit tough at the moment it is easy to see this is packed full of lovely flavours just waiting to emerge in five or so years time. It has the balanced required to make this a top wine. Excellent, but young.

Roman Niewodniczanski of Van Volxem makes some novel wines. Rather than the traditional practise of labelling the wines according to ripeness of the grapes, and thereby making several wines from one vineyard, Van Volxem wines are all just labelled with a vineyard name, no ripeness. Moreover, the wine is fermented drier, to a higher alcohol level, than most German wines. Niewodniczanski claims his wines are traditional, but doesn't everyone who is doing something novel?

Scharzhofberger 2003, Van Volxem
The nose is very ripe and oily. It is only vaguely citric, but smells more like a very ripe Sauvignon Blanc. The finer characteristics of Riesling have been baked out of this. The palate is full-bodied, with ripe fruit and a reasonable amount of sugar. What it lacks is a decent whack of acidity. This wine is highly atypical. It is not bad, though, and was nice with German sausages for lunch.

2003 was a crazy year in Europe, so hot. This wine demonstrates the problems with that.

Gewurztraminer Grand Cru Hengst 2003, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht
This honks of raw booze. An incredibly hot and alcoholic nose. What fruit there is is so confected it smells of foam banana sweets. There is no acidity to speak of. The palate has a huge alcohol sweetness which turns to a burn on the finish. It is quite sweet. All of the spice and fruit has been roasted out of the palate. This is hugely out of balance and is not fun to drink. No. To think Olivier Humbrecht made a more alcoholic Gewurztraminer in 2003, the mind boggles.

After the wild craziness of the 2002, I decided to try a less ripe vintage. I am drinking it at room temperature this time, but it would be fine with a light chill.

Savennières L'Enclos 2001, Eric Morgat
A rich, golden colour. The nose bursts with life: exotic fruits, minerals and a bit of alcohol. Although this is a powerful nose, it is less heavy and ponderous than the 2002. It smells really complex and stylish. The palate is quite full-bodied, with a lot of fruit and minerality. It has very good length with fruit and mineral-flavours persisting. The acidity is not high but it works as a perfect foil for the richness. This is a lot cleaner and more fun than most Savennières, it is also really good. This would be a perfect drink with rich fish dishes. I do not see much point in keeping it any longer, it is a great drink now. Whereas the 2002 was good but a bit hard work, this is simply a really good Savennières. I shall greatly enjoy my glass with lunch.

An older bottle of Pibarnon I was lucky enough to pick up in a shop that largely has off vintages of rubbish producers. Old Pibarnon is really lovely.

Bandol 1993, Château de Pibarnon
A rich nose of grilled meats, soft fruit and earth. It seems very complex. Smells great! The palate still has a bit of rigour, but is is reasonably soft and fruity. Good tannins and it is quite full-bodied but certainly not heavy or ponderous. The finish is very nice, with fruit, tannin and acidity in perfect harmony. It is very long with good complexity, too. A very silky, stylish Bandol. Since it cost me what current vintages are on sale for I feel very fortunate to have picked it up. Top mature Bandol.

Last night we had a dinner party with some lovely friends. It went on well into the early hours of the morning, and a lot of wine was consumed.

Champagne Henriot 1996
Nice enough, but it seemed to be lacking a touch of rigour. It was reasonably complex and quite ripe, but not enough acidity for long-term ageing.

Riesling Spätlese Schlossböckelheimer Kupfergrube 1999, Helmut Dönnhoff
Good acidity and nice fruit. It was a touch closed, though, as it was going through an awkward middle-aged period. However, it did show that when it would be fully mature it would be a great Riesling spätlese.

Meursault Premier Cru Bouchères 2001, Domaine Roulot
A beautiful, complex, elegant and refined white Burgundy. It had enough fat to balance the fine acidity and was very long. It was slightly savoury, which I think is a good thing in white Burgundy. Many thanks to James and Katie for bringing along this excellent wine.

Pouilly-Fuissé la Roche 2003, Daniel Barraud
Very ripe and alcoholic. Quite hot. Not really balanced and the flavours were not so good. No.

Château Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande 1990 en magnum
Nice fruit and a good tannic structure, but it was really lacking a touch of complexity and style. Merely good.

Bandol 2001, Château de Pibarnon
Very ripe and fruity, with good, earthy complexity. Nice length and style. This was very good with cheese and a lovely wine. It'll age exceptionally well.

Château Suduiraut 1988
Very good botrytis character. Rich and full-bodied but balanced by fine acidity. This was so good it was, in a way, a shame it was served after so many wines and it lost a bit of its shine.

Gigondas Prestige des Hautes Garrigues 2003, Domaine Santa Duc
Over-ripe with funky tannins and a strange melange of flavours. Not very nice at all.

I don't really like Sauvignon Blanc on its own but some are quite good; this is one of my favourites. Not only is it a good wine, it is also made by a charming chap. Jean-Laurent Vacheron is widely travelled had has assisted making wine at such prestigious addresses as Domaine de la Romanée-Conti; he also plays a mean game of rugby. It is good to buy wine from people who are not only skilled winemakers, but also nice enough people that you want to sit down and drink the wine with them. This was one of my recommendations last month.

Sancerre la Reine Blanche 2004, Domaine Vacheron
Pale green colour. A fresh, lively nose of cut grass and gooseberry fruit. It has a good, smokey minerality to it. Despite its sharp acidity this has a reasonable degree of fat and plenty of fruit. It is quite concentrated with fruity and mineral tastes persisting long after I've swallowed it; the finish is very nice. It is very lively, balanced and really quite complex for a Sauvignon Blanc. It also a really fun drink. 2004 was clearly a good vintage for l'homme Vacheron, this is one of the best wines I've tried from them since... oh well, last time I met Jean-Laurent. Excellent Sancerre and a bargain at this price.

After a terribly dull Korean meal I fancied something nice to drink.

Riesling Auslese Eitelsbacher Karthäuserhofberg 1999, Karthäuserhof
Light green/yellow colour. There are bubbles collecting around the base of the glass so I expect a bit of fizzy spritz. The nose smells very strongly of ripe limes, flint and there is a hint of botrytis as well. The nose is very light and elegant. On the palate there is the merest hint of fizziness, lots of ripe, lime fruit and a reasonable amount of sweetness. This is balanced by adequate acidity levels; it would be better with a bit more acidity. The finish is reasonably long with sweetness and minerality showing on the finish. This is a perfectly drinkable wine, but it is not really much more than that. It does make for a refreshing glass and slips down easily enough after a long day drinking beer and watching rugby.

I've said this before, but there is no harm in saying it again. Recently I've had a few heroic wines that I've quite liked, the Morgat Savennières and the 2001 Tempier spring to mind, but these are really not the wines I drink out of choice. I like my wines to be harmonious, balanced and refined; ideally bursting with charm and loveliness as well. The Cathiard and the two Arlaud wines I've had over the past two days have fitted this description perfectly. They have been concentrated and flavourful, but never overbearing or hard work. As I sit here finishing off my glass of Arlaud Ruchots I just feel charmed, happy and excited to be drinking it, I don't feel tired. Balance and harmony, that is what we like. In view of this I shudder in horror at the prospect of opening the bottle of Australian Zinfandel I picked up today; it is sixteen percent. Oh dear.

I've mentioned I enjoy Morey-Saint-Denis wines in the past; this one is particularly lovely. Once again it is a product of the hard work of the charming Cyprien Arlaud.

Morey-Saint-Denis Premier Cru les Ruchots 1999, Domaine Arlaud
A concentrated nose of lovely, elegant Morey fruit. The fruit is pure and ripe and it has a good earthy complexity to it. The nose is really beautiful. The palate is really deeply lovely. The fruit is ripe and beautiful, the tannins are ripe and balanced and the acidity is integrated and not excessive. It is extremely well balanced and the finish is very long and complex. This is a ripe but structured Burgundy that tickles my fancy almost lewdly so eager is it to please. Top stuff, a really svelte, silky and smooth Morey Premier Cru; I could ask for little more in terms of an opulent, hedonistic but intellectual wine.

The Tempier proved too filthy to drink. I got disappointed so decided to open something good; I wasn't quite expecting it to be quite this good.

Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru aux Malconsorts 2000, Sylvain Cathiard
Quite pale in colour. A rich, exotic, hedonistic nose of ripe, clean fruit. This smells extraordinarily beautiful and concentrated. There is some liquorice there too. If the nose is watching then a taste is actually getting on a wild roller-coaster of complete loveliness. It is concentrated and powerful, with great presence of fruit. It is also incredibly finely balanced with present but totally unobtrusive acid levels. This is a completely brilliant bottle of wine in perfect condition for drinking; I've had few 2000s that are as good as this. Really lovely.

My drinking companion likes it too.

Another bottle popped before taking around to my neighbours tonight. After the heroism of the 2001 this is an almost moderate fourteen and a half percent. It also really stinks of arseholes.

Bandol Cuvée Spéciale 2000, Domaine Tempier
The nose really stinks of arseholes, farm yards and other less-than-clean things. There is a bit of dark, ripe fruit underneath. With extended swirling in my glass it becomes a bit less filthy, but this is not a clean wine. The palate is very alcoholic, it seems more so than the 2001. It is moderately tannic, but whilst there is some fruit on the palate, it doesn't live up to the filth and booze levels. It is not a harmonious wine and it is a very long way away from being elegant or refined. I am not sure ageing it will do any favours, the low tannin and fruit levels seem slightly over-evolved already. Much as it pains me to say this about a Tempier wine, this is decidedly sub-interest.

I admit to being slightly prejudiced when tasting wines made by this producer. I know the winemaker (and sat around by a pool with him wearing togas last summer) and he is a terribly nice chap. I think it is very important to buy wines made by lovely people. When we tried his 2004s from cask they showed great promise as refined, elegant, proper Burgundy. This is an excellent source of beautiful Burgundy, the kind of Burgundy we love.

Morey-Saint-Denis 2002, Domaine Arlaud
This is quite dark. The nose shows lots of ripe, dark fruits; it smells quite a manly wine. Could it perhaps be a tad reduced on the nose? Not after five minutes of swirling in my glass. The palate has some big tannins, but there is a lot of ripe fruit, fine acidity and a good earthiness to it. It is very harmonious and balanced with good concentration and, despite its manly tannins, it is quite refined. The finish is very long and it is the dark fruit that persists. This is an excellent village-level wine. I am really enjoying my glass and I think the neighbours will love this when I take the rest of the bottle around to their place for a restorative glass of wine later tonight. Well done Cyprien!

Following a thread on a wine discussion forum about the yeast known as Brett, I decided to open this. Brettanomyces is a yeast used for making beer, and when it infects a wine it results in the wine having all sorts of dirty, filthy and arsehole-y characters. Some people think it is responsible for bottle variation when ageing, some people don't like the aromas it can cause whereas some people think it can be alright in a wine (in varying degrees). Bandol, made from the grape Mourvedre, is a famously Bretty wine and I have said in the past that Bandol smells of arseholes. I opened this wine because when visiting my beloved Domaine Tempier, the producer I own most wine from, to try the 2001s it appeared their new winemaker had cleaned their act up a bit and there was not a whiff of arseholes around. The alcohol had also been pushed up since he took over.

Bandol Cuvée Spéciale 2001, Domaine Tempier
Hell's bells, man! This is fifteen percent! It is very dark. The nose smells of dark, very ripe fruit. It also smells quite a bit of alcohol. It is a bit like a slightly herbal port. Not much filth at all on the nose, oddly clean. The palate is very big and concentrated, with very ripe fruit flavours. It is also fiercely tannic with a great whack of acidity in it. I don't really like these booze-tastic monsters, they get very hard work, but I think this will be very nice with the sausages for dinner tonight. I also think it would make very interesting old bones; no distracting Brett characters will help it age more uniformly too. Much as my moderate and reasonable side wants to point our the sheer scale of this wine, the hedonist in me says this is fun, balanced but above all good.

2000 was not a brilliant vintage in Burgundy, but the wines are generally ripe, fruity and (best of all) suitable for early drinking. Normally one might expect a wine like this to take a decade to come around, but this is just lovely now.

Pommard Premier Cru Grand Clos des Épenots 2000, Domaine de Courcel
Quite pale in colour. It has bramble-y red and dark fruits on the nose. The fruit is very pure and ripe. It is a reasonably complex nose with fruit, earth and some spicy warmth to it. The entry is very soft and fruity, they are lovely ripe red fruits. On the finish a bit of Pommard chewy hardness shows itself, but the tannin and spicy wood characters are perfectly in balance with the fruit. This has the elegance of a de Montille wine but a tiny bit more weight; it is very much a Côte de Beaune wine. It is very bright and fruity, with good acidity, nice complexity and reasonable length. This is a very nice wine and excellent for the vintage. Up for drinking now and to be drank with a lot of pleasure.

Thanks to my neighbourly friends at co:edit, Elitist Review has a new homepage. It is a very good piece of design, I am sure you'll agree. It is certainly a lot better than my own hopeless effort that used to grace the site.

I have just ordered another bottle of Pommard Premier Cru to drink over the up-coming weeks. This reminded me of when I visited Domaine de Courcel in the summer and saw this charmingly-named meat merchant's van in the village:

Perhaps 'moron' has some other meaning in French.

I suppose I just have too much time on my hands, but after a very polite and charming email asking if Elitist Review was a family of sites I decided to make it just so. New additions are food.elitistreview.com (for all good things foodie I encounter) and drinks.elitistreview.com (which will cover non-wine drinks). When writing for these I will continue to stick to the tenet that nice things are nicer than nasty things, so even if I am writing up a home-mixed cocktail that turns out to be awful it will be classified as 'sub-interest'.

As I write food.elitistreview.com is empty, but when I encounter a note-worthy meal it will be written up. I am very pleased to report I will be co-blogging about food with my witty, charming and articulate partner Daniel Lindholm; I am sure he will be a civilising influence to hold back my excesses.

If you wonder what I drink when no fine wine is available, drinks.elitistreview.com has a first entry.

I hope you enjoy my new sites. Thanks for dropping by.